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Tributes to William Shakespeare are taking place all over the world on Saturday (April 23) to mark the 400th anniversary of his death – but here’s one that a pair of North East brickies knocked up some 30 years ago.

This week the pair were back at the gable end in Heaton that they turned into a local landmark with their bricklaying skills back in the 1980s.

Paul Shucksmith and Bob Spuhler couldn’t remember exactly when their employers at Holly Construction assigned them to a very special job.

“I’d say it was 1986 but Paul says it could have been 1984,” said Bob, who is 67 now and living in retirement in Amble, Northumberland.

Paul, who is 59 and lives in nearby Hadston, couldn’t swear to the exact date but remembered the names of the team involved – site foreman Michael Hume, labourer Brian Dobson and Jack Shotton, who did the odd jobs on the site.

But it was Paul and Bob who faced the mighty bricklaying challenge.

Bob said the site was a mess when they arrived and the scaffolding was erected. “The building was a wreck with all exposed brickwork. And it wasn’t summer – it was cold, raining.”

Shakespeare brickies Paul Shucksmith and Bob Sphuler who were part of a team that built the mural on a gable end in Heaton in the 1980s

Paul said they were sceptical at first, handed the architect’s drawing of what was expected of them. “I remember saying, ‘Do you think this will actually work?’

“He said, ‘Just do it and see what you think’. Half way up we were saying, ‘It’s going to be brilliant, this. Really brilliant’.”

Bob remembered the pair being handed a drawing which explained where certain bricks had to be placed in each ‘course’ – or row – and whether they should be full bricks, half bricks, quarter bricks or bricks split in half lengthways.

There were three colours – red, black and cream – and if you look closely you’ll see that in places half a red brick has been laid on top of half a cream-coloured brick.

“It was a bit like painting by numbers,” said Bob.

Paul reckoned a bricklaying job which otherwise would have taken perhaps a week instead took more like three or four.

“At that particular time, if you laid 1,000 bricks you’d get £100. But with something like that you could maybe only lay 200 bricks in a day so they paid us the day rate plus a little extra.

“They were good like that and we were just proud to do the job.”

Bob took a photo of the finished gable end. “I was that pleased I took my wife and son across to see it.”

Shakespeare mural

Neither man could explain whose idea it was to put a huge Shakespeare portrait on a Heaton gable end – or who paid – but they know it was to do with the fact that many of the streets in the area have names related to the man they call The Bard.

Malcolm, Warwick, Hotspur and Bolingbroke streets are named after characters in Shakespeare’s history plays. Not too far away are Stratford Road and Stratford Grove West.

The gable end on South View West is a stone’s throw from the Hotspur Primary School, named after Harry Hotspur, headstrong son of the Duke of Northumberland who is slain in battle in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1.

Paul and Bob didn’t know much about that. They confessed they had never seen a Shakespeare play performed.

Not even A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which the ‘mechanicals’ (or working men), including Bottom the weaver, put on a play for the toffs and Snout, the tinker, plays a wall.

“Thou Wall, O Wall, O sweet and lovely Wall,/ Show me thy chink to blink through with mine eye,” says Bottom, playing the part of Pyramus.

Once Paul and Bob had laid the last brick and moved on, their wall became a landmark, admired by locals and train passengers on the nearby East coast main line, but also something of a mystery.

Why was it there? Who did it?

Jim Webb and Nicola Rose who now live in the Shakespeare house

Paul, now a newsagent, saw a photo of the wall in The Journal Culture magazine and made a call, agreeing to return with Bob to the site of their most memorable bricklaying assignment.

They were welcomed by Nicola Rose and Jim Webb who, five years ago, moved into the end-terrace house which is a monument to the greatest writer in the English language.

“We knew about it for a long time before we moved in,” said Jim, a Red Cross ambulance driver. “It’s a great local landmark.”

“When people say, ‘Where do you live?’ we always tell them it’s the road with Shakespeare on it,” said Nicola, who is a drummer and furniture maker.

She said a look at old street plans had confirmed that once their home was not the end of the row. Demolition created the ‘canvas’ for brickies Paul and Bob to work their magic on.

Jim and Nicola are expecting their first child and said they hadn’t ruled out a Shakespearean name.

After all, they do already have a whippet called Winter – after The Winter’s Tale perhaps?